


Apprehension

by tastewithouttalent



Category: Ginga Eiyuu Densetsu | Legend of the Galactic Heroes
Genre: Canonical Character Death, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Grief/Mourning, Inline with canon, M/M, Men Crying
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-11-15
Updated: 2020-11-15
Packaged: 2021-03-10 01:47:23
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,396
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27576056
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/tastewithouttalent/pseuds/tastewithouttalent
Summary: "But Reuenthal’s chest is flexing, his mind dizzy on the irrationality of panic, and the sound of Marquis Lohengramm’s voice rising to wail the agony of a call that will never again be answered is enough to break the courage that has kept him strong in the face of dozens of battles." In the aftermath, Mittermeyer and Reuenthal reach for the comfort others have lost.
Relationships: Siegfried Kircheis/Reinhard von Lohengramm, Wolfgang Mittermeyer/Oskar von Reuenthal
Comments: 3
Kudos: 17





	Apprehension

Reuenthal’s hands are shaking as he leaves the hall.

He can’t seem to stop. His breathing is pitched high in his chest, rising up his throat to knot around the rhythm of his inhales until he feels as if he is drowning, as if the air around him is evaporating to drop him into choking unconsciousness without any chance to save himself. His thoughts are rising, pulling themselves free of the cage of his body to drift airy-light as feathers through the air he can’t draw into his struggling lungs. And his hands are shaking, fingers trembling like leaves under the clinging horror of crimson spilling over his nails and across his palms.

He shouldn’t leave. Some part of him recognizes that, knows that his responsibility is within, to stand attentive to the man he has sworn to follow, the man who has never needed support as critically as he does at this moment, as he kneels in a spreading pool of blood spilled from his own devastated heart. But Reuenthal’s chest is flexing, his mind dizzy on the irrationality of panic, and the sound of Marquis Lohengramm’s voice rising to wail the agony of a call that will never again be answered is enough to break the courage that has kept him strong in the face of dozens of battles. So Reuenthal flees, cracks and breaks and runs, and when he stumbles through the doors there is no voice to call him back, no crisp command to return him to his post.

There is no one left to care, in this moment.

He struggles to move. His feet bear him staggering forward, keeping him upright at the expense of his balance, and when he tries to run they swing him sideways to run up against the side of the hallway, slamming his shoulder into the wall as his knees shake with the force of Lohengramm’s impossible grief still echoing at his ears. Reuenthal shuts his eyes, struggling for breath, hands working convulsively at his sides as his mind reverberates with the crystalline memory of that agonized wail; and then there is a sound from the present, the creak of the door opening behind him, and:

“Reuenthal,” his name torn raw from a voice so familiar Reuenthal doesn’t need to turn to know the speaker.

He does turn. His body is acting on impulse now, bearing itself on the instinct of the emotion that has swept over him like a storm, and even as Reuenthal’s mind flinches from the impact his eyes are finding Mittermeyer’s, his gaze locking tight onto the horror carved stark into the other’s face. Reuenthal’s throat constricts, choking him to silence for a sharp moment, and into his voicelessness Mittermeyer drags a ragged inhale and speaks again.

“Reuenthal.” He makes the name sound a prayer, an exhale of agonized relief, and as Reuenthal stands still and staring Mittermeyer surges forward, moving with such speed he has barely lifted his hands before they are pressing to Reuenthal’s face, his palms cradling the other’s head between them. Reuenthal blinks, startled by the warmth of the contact, startled by the existence of any warmth in the world at all, and Mittermeyer pulls another breath that sounds like a sob.

“I didn’t—” and he stops, breaking himself off with a sharp shake of his head as he blinks hard against the tears shining in his eyes. “Are you well?”

“I,” Reuenthal says. His lips are numb. His vision is hazing, blurring away all the rest of the world but for Mittermeyer’s face turned up to his, Mittermeyer’s eyes bright and golden with attention. He lifts his hand, impulse seeking the support of Mittermeyer’s presence, habit pulling his hand to its familiar resting place at Mittermeyer’s hip, but his fingers are still trembling under their stain and he halts himself, closing his bloodstained hand to a fist instead of grasping for the comfort of Mittermeyer against him. “He fell right in front of me.” He works his throat, jerks his head in a sharp motion. “I saw him—I could have reached out and touched him.”

Reuenthal’s vision is hazing, his sight letting go the tether of Mittermeyer’s gaze to topple back, to return him to the moment of crisis: the weapon raised towards the throne, the shout of murderous intent. The jerk of motion, in that first moment of stunned stillness, as the man standing tall in front of Reuenthal moved before any of them could, before even Lohengramm looking down at them all had opened his mouth; and the flash of color, as stark as the vivid shade of crimson hair, tearing through the air with such clarity that it had seemed a painting for a heartbeat of time, some abstract conceit of visceral beauty in the moment before reality struck down upon them all. Reuenthal can see Kircheis falling, collapsing to his knees as blood spread with shocking, fatal speed into a pool at their feet; and then his head moves, pulled to action by the insistence of hands at his face, and “ _Oskar_ ,” Mittermeyer sobs, and Reuenthal is jerked back into himself, seizing on a breath of air as he reaches to clutch at the wrist of the hand pressing desperately to his face.

“He’s dead,” Reuenthal says, a true fact that needs no repeating but for his own echoing disbelief. “He is—” and his throat tightens again, matching the press of his fingers digging into Mittermeyer’s wrist. “I could have saved him. If I had moved faster—”

“You could have  _ died_” and Mittermeyer’s voice breaks on a height Reuenthal has never heard from him before, a cliff of agony that shocks through all his scattered thoughts to bring him suddenly, sharply present. There are tears in Mittermeyer’s eyes, a tremor in his hands and quivering through his fingertips, and he is clutching at Reuenthal before him, his fingers digging in to fists at the other’s hair as if he is trying to bear them physically into the same space. “You were right behind him, if you had come forward—” and Mittermeyer gasps a sob, his hand digging into Reuenthal’s hair to clutch at the back of the other’s neck as his body cants forward to press his chest to Reuenthal’s. “I would have  _ lost _ you.”

Reuenthal had thought himself hollowed, struck silent by the impact of their leader’s grief, by the secondhand pain that ripped from Lohengramm’s throat to echo the name of his loss into the endless, eternal absence that must be left by Kircheis’s passing. But Mittermeyer’s words tear at the ground under his feet, shatter open the space of his shock, and suddenly he feels himself falling, toppling over an edge into an empathy that rises to meet him like the ground at the base of a cliff, like the impossible cold of open space. For a moment Reuenthal feels Lohengramm’s pain, feels the sudden, unbearable loss of half of himself torn violently asunder; and he chokes on a breath, his hands reaching out to clutch at Mittermeyer to draw himself back from the vertigo of his imagination with desperate force.

“No,” he says, breathing it as a spell against the force of possibility, a means to force back the specter of darkness threatening to swamp his sanity into the fall of an endless grief. “ _No_.”

“I cannot,” Mittermeyer gasps, his hands in Reuenthal’s hair, his fingers stroking desperate affection across the other’s throat, brow, jaw. “This is an impossible blow. I do not know if Lohengramm will ever recover. I do not know what we will do if he does not.” His palms fit to Reuenthal’s head, his fingers spread wide to cradle the other’s face between them. “But, Oskar, I cannot help but feel grateful that it was his heart lost and not mine.”

He speaks the words as a confession, an acknowledgment of a weakness that runs too deep to be torn free. But Reuenthal’s breath catches on recognition more than judgment, and when his fingers tighten it is to hold to Mittermeyer’s wrist and to cling to the body pressing close and warm and  _ alive _ against his own. Mittermeyer’s hands cup Reuenthal’s face, his head turns up to the other, and Reuenthal bows his head to submit to the desperate, selfish need of Mittermeyer’s lips pressing gratitude against the tear-damp curve of his own mouth.


End file.
